It took every last scrap of Nasir’s self-worth not to press closer when he mounted Afya’s back. It became hard to breathe, and then altogether hard to daama exist when Zafira fell against him. Soon they were past the gates, cantering down the sloping street unfurling from the palace, and he had no choice but to exhale a very slow and not-so-collected breath.
Zafira turned back to take in the alabaster majesty of the Demenhune palace, her blue eyes bright with childlike wonder. They were clear, unaffected by the book clutched to her chest, and he wondered if this was one of the moments she had spoken of, when she and it had come to an understanding.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“An apt descriptor for a number of things,” he murmured, pleased when her shoulders stiffened.
He slowed Afya to a walk along the bustling streets, ever aware of the dark blotch he was in this fair city, from the snow and the buildings down to the pristine white thobes, light-hued abayas, and furred coats almost everyone wore. Demenhur, the caliphate of ghosts and ethereality.
“How long will it take?” asked Zafira.
“Afya is an Alder steed,” Nasir replied. Spotting his mother’s mare in Demenhur’s stables was the last thing he had expected. He had never expected to see her again, khalas, sure she’d been eaten by the ifrit elder. If he were to guess, Seif had left her for them in the courtyard on the night of their escape, for only a safi would be shrewd enough to notice an Alder steed in the midst of chaos, and someone in the Nine Elite would have ridden her here. “I’d say a little under three days, but there’s no telling how this new, dark Sarasin will be.”
He heard her soft murmur of Alder steed before she ran her hands down Afya’s neck in a way that made him swallow thickly.
The soft sun had reached its zenith by the time the bustle of the main city dwindled to a few sole houses. Nasir picked up the pace, then slowed Afya down again when they neared a village. Zafira turned, profile lit with sunlight. “I’m sorry about your father. I never had the chance to tell you.”
He had lost his father long ago, the moment the poker first seared his back, and yet some part of him had held on to hope. For recognition. For a smile. For a nod of approval like he was still a daama child. Now Arawiya’s notorious sultan was a corpse on the cold, hard tile beside his own throne. A puppet left to rot without even the respect of a burial.
“It’s all right,” Zafira whispered, closing her cold hands around his. “It’s all right.” Her thumbs swept across his skin, covering the dark flame as they passed a man using a shovel in the snow and a line of women chatting in front of another’s house.
There were only spiny trees to their either side when she spoke again, softly. “Others cry in tears. You cry in shadow.”
She continued her ministrations, absently, and though he couldn’t see his hands, he knew the moment the shadows receded and something else stirred inside him at her touch. His grip tightened on the reins and her own loosened, realization striking quick.
Rimaal, he—
He swung off the mare’s back, pursing his mouth at the slush beneath his boots but grateful for the rush of cold against his body. She stared at him from the saddle as if he’d lost his mind. He almost laughed. Surely she wasn’t that guileless?
“Why can’t you part with the Jawarat?” he asked, to distract himself as much as her.
She stiffened. “You promised.”
“It’s only a question.” His voice dropped. “Turn us back.”
He stopped.
“Turn back, or I will take you to the caliph’s palace and leave—”
He saw the moment her idea struck. She lunged for the reins with a soft cry as her wound stretched, wrenching Afya around with a deft hand. Nasir leaped forward with a curse, grappling one rein from her grip, half of him bearing her weight to stop her from falling.
“You lied,” she panted against him, and oh how he wished there was another reason she was like this, so gloriously coming undone.
“It was only a question,” he said again, and then he laughed at how he was defending himself. At how he was being used yet again. At how she was ready to leave him here. It wasn’t hard to find words when he was in pain. “Do you think I’m some sort of easy mark? Is that why you agreed to letting me be your horseman? Why you didn’t want me telling the others?”
She stilled, hurting his pride when she dared to meet his eyes.
“I will take you back to the palace and chain you to your bed,” he growled in her ear. “This is madness.”
She dropped the other rein, her knuckles bone white. Their exhales clouded the air like smoke.
“I don’t—I don’t want Lana to see me like this. I’m not going to burden her the way our mother did,” she said, almost reluctantly. “Yasmine doesn’t understand. Kifah and Altair—I saw them yesterday in the caliph’s room. I saw their faces, Nasir.” Her words came in a rush. “I’m losing all sense of
right and wrong, and there’s no one who understands. Not— not the way you can. No one else will look at me and know that I’m still here.” She haltingly lowered her gaze to him. “That was why I agreed. Not because I have no respect for you. Not because you’re worth nothing to me.”
A rider on a bay horse rushed past them, breaking the heavy silence. They needed to move. Altair’s plan banked on proper timing, and Nasir had factored just enough time for them and Afya to rest.
“You understand, don’t you?” she asked softly. “You know what that means. Don’t you?”
What you mean to me, her eyes said. Because though she was bold in the face of so much, his presence, he had learned, often drenched her in diffidence.
And it was only natural that after a lifetime of insults, he did not know how to react to words from the heart. Words that held emotions he had never experienced, no matter what he once believed. She puzzled him, too—one moment she was asking him what he wanted of her. The next, he was baring his heart and she was turning away, confusing him. One moment she refused his crown, the next she chose him over everyone else.
He took the reins from her outstretched hands.
